I Went Into a Nuclear Plant and It Changed How I Think About Radiation - Smarter Every Day 309

Comments · 4.2K

• SM

  @smartereveryday · 1 year ago · pinned

  We&apos;re finally going INTO A NUCLEAR POWER PLANT! &nbsp;How cool is this? Having this deep understanding of radiation is really going to help us in the nuclear deep dive series. Also, a huge thank you to KiwiCo for sponsoring this video. I&apos;ve loved working with them for years. Check out their new lines to make a kid in your life happy and smarter. To get 50% off your first monthly crate go to <a href="https://kiwico.com/smarter">https://kiwico.com/smarter</a> .

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• NI

  @Nick-Lab · 1 year ago

  Hank green mentioned that they can&apos;t convert old coal fire plants to nuclear because there is too much radiation from burning coal to meet nuclear plant standards.

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• SI

  @SirGeeeO · 1 year ago

  The felt budget is through the roof on this video

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• SI

  @sirjimmy71 · 1 year ago (edited)

  I was a Nuke Mechanic on the USS Albuquerque (SSN 706). To your point of how safe it is (radiologically) to work in a power plant, the highest dose I ever received on my TLD (Thermo-Lumenesant Dosemeter) was when the boat went on a deployment, and I was left in port to do schools. &nbsp;Just the background radiation of being on shore was higher than what I received on the boat under operation.

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• PV

  @pvflood · 1 year ago

  I worked as a Maintenance Instrument Tech in a nuclear plant for 14 years (1987 to 2000). This video brings back many memories. People always ask my, is it safe? My response is always, give me a choice to live next to a nuke or any other industrial factory, and I&apos;ll choose the nuke plant in a heartbeat.

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• BU

  @bubzthetroll · 1 year ago (edited)

  Kyle Hill has been beating this drum for years. There really needs to be more voices out there to drown out the nuclear doomsayers that are holding us back.

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• JE

  @JeanJeanquoiquoi · 1 year ago (edited)

  Sorry for my english, I m french, but I work in a laboratory in which we analyse dosimeters of legal record, to extract the worker dose. Your one is a Landauer. So their is at least 2 detectors in it, one for gamma, X, beta and one for neutrons (they are like that in France, I m not totally sure about the US version).<br><br>The 1st one (the black and longest) is called an &quot;OSL&quot; (Optically Stimulated Luminescence), behind filters their is a kind of cristal with impurties. When radiations hit that crystal, electrons from the atoms gain energy and go to the conduction band, and when those electrons try to go back into the valence band, some get traps in the impurties. The number of traps is proportional to the combined energy of radiation that hit the crystal. To read this data, you just need to give those trap electrons some energy by lighting the crystal (Optically Stimulated) and then the electron will finally loose energy and come back to the valence band. When the electron loose its energy it emits photon (Luminescence), so you just need to count those photons and you have the number of traps freed and so the energy store in the crystal. And with the filters which absorb radiation differently, you can reconstruct the radiation pattern and know the dose. The reading liberates a small portion of traps (around 0.3-0.7%) so you can reread the dosimeter if you need, and you can reset the dosimeter by lighting it with a very bright light so that you liberate all traps. This technology is facinating, you can also use it in archeology, by analysing some geological sediments and determine when they last saw the sun.<br><br>The second one (the yellow or white and smallest) is called a &quot;Neutrak&quot;. It is composed of 2 things, the detector (a simple plastic call CR-39) and a radiator. The difficulty when you work with neutron, is that it dosn&apos;t react a lot with matter because of it&apos;s neutral charge. So to count the number of neutrons, you have to cheat, this is the radiator purpose. You have 2 kind of neutrons (thermal and fast) which have different energy and doesn&apos;t contribute equally to the dose. For fast neutrons, the radiator is composed of a material rich in hydrogen, when a neutron hit a hydrogen nucleus (a simple proton), because they have almost the same mass, the neutron gives his energy to the protons, and like some atom-billard, the proton is ejected and go throught the detector. And because the proton is a charge particle, it damages the detector. For thermal, the radiator is composed of material rich in boron, when a thermal neutron hit boron, their is a nuclear reaction which liberates an alpha particle. This alpha then hit the dector and damage it as well. To count those damage and then know how many neutrons hit the Neutrak, you 1st need to expand those damage, to do so you need to dip the detector in a bath of sodium hydroxide at 74°C for 15hours. Then you just need to watch the detector under a microscope and count the number of holes which are proportionnal to the dose.<br><br>You could maybe try to reach Landauer US so they can explain this for your videos.

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• SC

  @scottmanley · 1 year ago

  I had a summer job experience at Hunterston Nuclear Power station in Scotland, I was working on new radiation alarm testing equipment and so I had access to a huge range of areas inside the facilities (there were 4 reactors on site, two were being decommissioned). For the workers who didn&apos;t come in with a degree in physics the radiation classification was simplified into R1 through R4 for increasingly powerful radiating sources that were considered static and then C1 through C3 for areas with contamination like dust which could get on your feet and could travel with you. Areas could have both R and C designations.<br>With high radiation flux areas like R4 time and distance were important, move in and out fast, and stay away from the &apos;hottest areas. For C zones you needed to don protective gear, and carefully remove it on the way out, slow and steady was how you handle the contamination zones. &nbsp;<br>At the lowest end you might be just wearing gloves, foot protectors and a light suit over the top, higher levels had airtight suits with self contained air supplies.

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• NE

  @necrothitude · 1 year ago

  Something that struck me and made me smile was that your training included detailed math and educations about how nuclear reactions work. It tells me that they want everybody in that plant, from the engineers to the press walking through it, to be able to make decisions from a position of scientific understanding when they find themselves in any unfamiliar situation. That speaks to a working culture that values safety and human life, which is the only way we&apos;re going to be able to continue having nuclear power on our grid long into the future.

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• MO

  @moreskee · 1 year ago (edited)

  I worked in a Nuclear plant 25 years ago. Just did janitorial work but we entered the plant to clean during outage maintenance. I was able to see the Uranium rods getting changed under the hard water. I&apos;ll never forget the blue/purple aura glow around the rods. <br><br>NGET (Nuclear General Education Training) was the training we did before you can enter the plant. We were in the plant to clean dust and mop the floors 24/7 with Sparkle glass cleaner to prevent radiation build up during outage.

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• BI

  @biggreenblob · 1 year ago

  Destin. The scale of your videos is astounding, but even more incredible is your humility throughout. To maintain such a humble attitude and thirst for learning, despite commanding such a large audience, not to mention being one of the most intelligent people I&apos;ve ever heard speak... It&apos;s truly a gift. Thank you, for all that you do.

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• ER

  @erikdietrich2678 · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRaKMTK7ea0&amp;t=2509">41:49</a> Cliffhanger in an educational video?You know Dustin is doing something right when just the anticipation of learning - not impending doom/tragedy - makes you impatient to find out what happens next.

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